


By Any Other Name

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Kid Peter Parker, Mentioned Character Death, Misgendering, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 15:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11717238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: This child, this young, precious child that May has been trusted with caring for, won't listen to her, and she wants to find out why.-“Can I be someone else instead?” She asked. “Not Karen. Someone cool, like Captain America!” Her eyes were suddenly alight with excitement, but her face betrayed how she felt. “I could be called Steve and I’d be way cooler. He didn’t have parents either.”





	By Any Other Name

“Karen, sweetie, come on.” May was reaching her wit’s end with this child. She understood that she was going through a rough time, even more so than Ben and herself, but it was starting to get excessive and she had no experience with stubborn children.

“No!” That was the same response that had been coming through Karen’s bedroom door for the last ten minutes now, each time louder and slightly grumpier. This, May thought with a sigh, was why she didn't have kids of her own. They were impossible sometimes, as sweet as they could be when they were behaving well. Not that she’d ever really encountered Karen behaving well.

“Come on, we have to go and meet the people at your new school,” she said. “We can go and get ice cream afterwards, if you’re good.”

“I don’t want to talk to weird teachers!” Karen called. “I don’t like school. Why do I have to go?” The unspoken ‘mom can’t make me anymore’ echoed from the last time they’d had this argument.

“You have to go to school because it’s the law, young lady,” May said patiently. Karen made a noise that sounded rather like a growl, and there was a ‘thud’ that sounded like a wardrobe being kicked. “Unlock your bedroom door right now. Your uncle will be removing that lock when he gets home unless you come out now.”

There was a short interval where May heard nothing but silence, and then a small frustrated sound. A few moments later, there was the sound of the lock turning and Karen opened the door. Her face was red and the skin around her eyes slightly swollen; she’d been crying again.

“Oh, Karen.” May opened her arms, perfectly prepared to give her niece a comforting hug, but Karen stalked past her and folded her arms defiantly. “Come on, sweetheart, you can talk to me. What’s wrong? I know this is a hard time, but you shouldn’t shut out your uncle and I.”

“Can I be someone else instead?” She asked. “Not Karen. Someone cool, like Captain America!” Her eyes were suddenly alight with excitement, but her face betrayed how she felt. “I could be called Steve and I’d be way cooler. He didn’t have parents either.”

“Karen, what’s all this about?” May bent down to her height, concerned. Clearly Karen had taken her parents’ deaths hard, but this was new. Wanting to ‘be someone else’ was a little worrying. More than a little. “Why would you want to be called Steve?”

“I don’t like being a girl,” she said. “I just- I don’t like it! I don’t like my name but mom liked it and now she’s not- not here anymore and maybe I thought I could change it! People in films change their names and stuff.”

“Do you just want to change your name because your parents are dead? I’m sure we could work something out, Karen, but…” May trailed off, unsure of what to say. “What do you mean you don’t like being a girl?”

Karen shrugged. “I don’t like it,” she said. “And I don’t want to change it because they’re d- not around anymore, I just thought that maybe I could now because they won’t mind as much. Because they don’t have to know.”

May frowned again, trying to work through this child's thinking. It sounded like she had been wanting to talk about this for some time, but had been scared of her parents' disapproval. "Are you telling me that you would rather be a boy than a girl?"

Karen bit her lip, looking unsure for a moment, and then she nodded. "Yeah," she said, and May just nodded. She didn’t feel like she could do anything else. This was an important moment in their relationship, she could tell, and she needed to get it right.

"Okay," she said. She was going to have to look into this. There was no child psychologist they could refer to, there wasn't the money for that, but...she wanted to make Karen happy.

There was a long moment of silence. May wasn't sure what else to say. Karen seemed to be fidgeting, uncertain. And then she- he, maybe?- blurted something out. "If I'm gonna be a boy you can call me Peter. And I really hate it when people call me 'young lady'."

"Okay, Peter," she said, smiling at him- yes, him. "I think we have some explaining to do to these teachers at school, young man, so you need to hurry up and get your shoes on!"


End file.
